site.btaChange in Electricity Market after July 1 Will not Affect Prices, Says Energy Committee Chair

The change in the electricity market after July 1 will not have an impact on prices, explained Energy Committee Chair Delyan Dobrev from GERB-UDF on Tuesday at an energy forum in Sofia, organized by Capital. Dobrev said that the supply of electricity will increase, and the demand for it will increase in the similarly. "When demand and supply increase by the same amount, this has no relation to market prices,"  he commented and added that this does not mean that the prices will be the same, but that this change will not affect them.

Regarding the problems related to the connection of new renewable energy sources (RES) to the grid, Dobrev said that a flexible scheme was proposed. A study by the Electricity System Operator in Northeast Bulgaria indicated that solar and wind energy overlaps only 2% of the time. These two different electricity producers may be connected to the same network at different times. "The best thing is that this can be done without additional investments. We are simply increasing the efficiency of this network," the Energy Committee Chair pointed out.

The introduction of a temporary scheme for connecting to the network has been very useful, Dobrev also commented. He recalled that this provides an opportunity to use existing facilities intended for back up use. The goal is to connect the RES immediately while the new facility is being built. Almost all accessions are under the temporary scheme in question. The problem is that this scheme is not sufficient, because the network is still overloaded at the moment and there is a massive refusal to connect new renewable energy sources, explained Dobrev.